Tension in Henrico: “redistricting”

If one were to survey students, parents, teachers, school boards, and board of supervisors about their least favorite word in public education, “redistricting” would win.

Redistricting, the realigning of school attendance zones to balance overcrowding in large school systems, is quite simply a skunk. It stinks.

I haven’t forgotten redistricting from my fifteen month appointment to the Henrico County School Board. That was in the fall of 2018. Fast forward seven years, and redistricting still riles up the public.

To work through this odorous environment, a school board usually hires a consultant. The consultant reviews data, maps, and solicits feedback. From this, the consultant will develop multiple options for the school board to consider.

Public meetings are held. I remember attending those emotionally charged sessions. I also responded to phone calls, emails, and met individually with concerned parents.

The bottom line is no parent wants the comfort zone of their current school assignment disrupted for their student. The parental mentality is not for the good of the cause. The thinking is solely—move someone else’s child, disrupt their family, but not mine.

In 2018, the redistricting focus was similar to what the school system experiences today. Based upon the disagreeable joint meeting of both boards on March 20, the concern is still about overcrowded schools in the west with a smidgen in the east.

My school board term ended in December of 2019. Redistricting continued to shadow the board. Then in 2020, COVID-19 arrived. Redistricting became a flatten skunk in the board’s rearview mirrors.

Here we are five years later, and the skunk has returned to the table. In reading the frustrating comments from members of the Board of Supervisors, redistricting hasn’t lost its emotional pungency.

Accusatory hot air, body language, and asserting that money isn’t the issue doesn’t exactly create an atmosphere conducive for collaboration. Board of Supervisors member, Misty Roundtree, from the Three Chopt District, encouraged “out of the box” thinking to solve the issue.

Yes, if there is a new approach for solving overcrowding in schools other than redistricting, we need to learn about it.

Maybe what we need is a shift in tectonic plates that would merge the county into one whole plot instead of an east and west linked together by a slender northern corridor.

Despite in some instances, Herculean efforts, the disparity between schools in the eastern and western halves are a constant undertow. That current is relentlessly pulling at our communities and leaders.

While Henrico County isn’t perfect, the county is blessed to have visionary leadership and an economic stability that is respected beyond Virginia.

I suspect that the heart of redistricting and discrepancies between the schools in the east and west can be improved by asking tough questions and providing support, not just financial support.

Students, parents, and teachers who are in the trenches of the county’s schools need leaders to understand what it takes to survive everyday.

These survivor questions roil through every school in the county:

How do you support the teacher who despite reaching out has never had a meeting with the parent of a student who is a behavioral challenge everyday in the classroom?

How do you support the gifted student whose home is an unstable motel room?

How do you support the single parent who is raising three students while stringing together multiple jobs?

How will human resources find qualified teachers to teach in our schools where no one wants to teach?

How do we transform those schools where no one wants to teach into schools where everyone wants to teach?

How do we better equip classroom teachers to be more effective in working with a constantly changing student population?

How do we support parents to become better at being parents?

Additionally, I believe one of the most difficult challenges facing our public schools is the continuing erosion of families. That instability lies at the heart of what ails our schools.

Listen carefully, I’m not saying we don’t have effective single parents. I worked with many.

I’m suggesting Henrico leaders review the data to learn how our schools are impacted by families who are struggling to survive.

How frequently are classroom environments disrupted by students who can’t cope in the classroom because of a dysfunctional family?

Correspondingly, how much of redistricting is shaped by an on-going energy burn about the discrepancies between the east and the west?

How might that wasteful whining be repurposed by truly understanding and working to solve what it takes for a struggling Henrico public school family to survive in our county?

No matter the struggles faced by our families, either directly or indirectly, these stresses impact that skunk—redistricting.

We must solve this redistricting.